She took a coffee filter from the pack and realized she was trembling. Jared noticed and took the filter from her.
“Let me.” He took over, and Zea sat down at the table and took a deep breath. Jared put the coffee on and joined her.
“I’m sorry, I’ve blind-sided you. Would it help if I explained my circumstances, my family?”
Zea nodded. He was so elegant, his presence so virile, so masculine. Even his movements were graceful, the opposite of David’s loping, easy gait. Jared smiled at her.
“Our parents—our birthparents—put us both up for adoption when we were born, and sadly we were separated.” Jared stopped. “You did know David was adopted?”
She nodded.
Jared smiled. “A little over a month ago, I was contacted by a lawyer from New Orleans. My birth father had just died and as it turned out, I was the main recipient of his will—along with my twin brother. Fraternal twins, not identical, I’m told.”
The coffee was ready. Jared got up, looking around for cups.
“That cupboard.” Zea spoke at last, pointing. Jared smiled his thanks and poured them both a cup.
“Thank you.” Zea burned her tongue on the hot liquid and winced. The bitter taste revolted her. She felt the cup shake in her hands.
“Careful, now.”
She tried to smile. “Mr. Podesta…”
“Jared.”
“Jared, please go on.”
He stirred creamer into his coffee. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know he even existed, but when I found out … well.” He sat back in the chair, his manner relaxed. “I had to find him, didn’t I? I went to the Seattle PD, and after a lot of persuasion they gave me your address.” His face turned serious. “I’m just so sorry I was too late. You must have been through hell. Was David suffering from depression?”
Zea was silent for a moment. She didn’t want to share details about their lives with this man if he wasn’t who he said he was.
“I don’t want to be rude, Jared, but do you have any identification?”
“Of course.” Jared reached inside his jacket. He pulled a sheaf of papers out and handed them to her. Everything was there, birth certificates, adoption papers, legal papers. And all of it backed up what Jared was saying.
She glanced up under her lashes. He was looking around the room. She studied him as he took in the details of their lives. He was taller than David, imposing, but it wasn’t hard to find David in his features. Jared’s face was more finely angled, somehow more adult than David’s sweet face had been. Then he did something that made her heart stop. It was so small, so insignificant. He rubbed his left eye with the heel of his hand.
Zea felt a wave of grief flood over her as she watched him repeat the movement with his right eye then again with the left. David. It was a simple gesture, one of the first things she’d noticed about him. She used to tease him about it. Seeing this stranger repeat it made her reserve crumble and she felt her body start to tremble, the air in her lungs disappearing.
Jared reached across the table and took her hand in his. His big fingers were warm; his thumb stroked the back of her hand.
“You are having a hard time with this.” He moved his other hand to cover hers.
Zea gave a shaky laugh. “Sorry, it’s just ….”
“I know, I know. It’s a lot to take in. I don’t want to steamroller you.” He squeezed her hand gently and leaned back. “I’m sorry, so sorry, Zea, about David. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Zea took a deep breath in. “It’s been … I can’t even tell you, Jared, what it’s been like. I just don’t understand.”
She could feel the tightness in her chest become unbearable. She got up and rinsed her cup, bringing the coffee pot to refill Jared’s cup. He caught her hand and gazed up at her, his eyes soft with understanding.
“I’m sorry to bring all of this for you. I just … I always felt I was half a person, that something was missing. I had to come. And…” He smiled at her. “I’m still glad I did. I’m sorry David is gone, Zea, but I can’t help but be glad you’re here. The woman my brother loved.”
Zea felt lost in his eyes, so familiar and yet so strange. “I’m glad, too,” she managed to whisper, and the warmth of his smile made her chest ease. He sat back in his chair and drained his coffee.
“Thank you. I think I’ve inconvenienced you enough for one day.”
“No…” she stopped as he held his hand up.
“I have. You have been a very gracious hostess, thank you.”
She walked him to the door where he took her hands in his. His thumb stroked over the back of her hand, his fingers warm and dry.
“Despite the circumstances, it has been a pleasure to meet you. I would like to take you out to dinner tonight, if I may. I noticed a restaurant in town; George’s, is it? I won’t take no for an answer.”
She nodded. “Of course. I would like that, Jared.”
“Good. I’ll pick you up at eight. Until tonight, Zea.” He lingered as if to say something else, changed his mind, and left.
Yesterday she’d had no family, no one in the world. Now she had an actual bonafide brother-in-law, and she didn’t know how she felt about that. About him. Jared.
She wondered how David would have reacted. He would have welcomed Jared with open arms, she realized, but there was something else bothering her.
It was only later when she discovered what it was. Betrayal. She felt she had betrayed two people now with her tryst with Flynt. She pushed the thought to the back of her mind. A one-night stand meant nothing, and it wasn’t as if it would ever happen again.
“Thank you for being a lovely dinner companion.” Jared opened her car door for her but lingered. Just before midnight, Main Street was quiet and still. Zea smiled at him.
“Thank you for dinner. Jared, I’m really happy you decided to come and find me.” Zea knew she meant her words, too; Jared was like a balm on her grief, someone she could talk openly with about David.
Jared leaned against the hood of the car, and Zea was surprised to see the sadness in his face.
“I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry you had to go through that … David’s death … alone. I’m sorry I didn’t know about him, about you.”
Zea swallowed over the sudden lump in her throat. “It’s okay, Jared. I just wish you had known him. You would have loved him; I promise you that. It’s just damn bad luck, is all. Don’t believe what the papers say. He was a good man. Something must have happened to him.”
“I’d like to visit his grave. Say goodbye and, well, hello, too, I guess.” A small smile. Zea shifted uncomfortably.
“David didn’t want … he hated mausoleums. He wanted to be cremated and his ashes scattered in the Sound. I’m sorry, Jared.”
He nodded but didn’t say anything. She slid her hand into his and held it, feeling him squeeze her fingers briefly. They stood like that for a few minutes until Jared gave a short laugh.
“Well, if you’re sure you’ll be okay.” He let go of her hand and kissed her cheek.
Zea sat in her truck and watched him cross the street to the apartment. Before he went inside, he turned and waved at her. She waved back and sat there for a moment. There was a strange feeling inside her, a warmth she didn’t recognize. Family, she thought. I still have a family. It felt weird to contemplate that. She laughed softly to herself and, starting the car, turned for home.
The pictures broke on the web while Luca and Emory were flying back from the Caribbean. Neither was checking the news; they were enjoying a far more pleasurable time in the bedroom of the plane.
So when they alighted the plane and walked through arrivals, they were stunned and shocked by the amount of press waiting for them.
Luca cursed harshly and threw his coat over Emory. “Fuck, we should have arranged a limo from the plane. Hurry, darling, let’s just get through this.”
He steered her through the throng of pushing and shoving men and got her into the car as soon as he could man
age. “Floor it,” he barked at the driver, who did, tires squealing as they raced away from the airport.
Luca took a trembling Emory in his arms while yanking his cell phone out of his pocket and checking it. “Damn it, damn it…”
Emory looked at him with wide, frightened eyes. “What is it?”
He shook his head. “Oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry. They have pictures of us.”
“How? When?”
“On the island. In our villa ….” Luca hesitated, tightening his grip on her. “In our bed.”
Emory crumbled. “Oh, no, no, no … poor Bree. You need to talk to her.”
Luca half-smiled. It was just like Emory to think of Bree’s feelings before her own. “I’ll call her now.”
He winced as Clem answered her daughter’s phone. His ex-wife’s voice was like ice. “She doesn’t want to talk to you yet, Luca. Give her time.”
“I’m so sorry, Clem, to Bree, to you that my relationship with Emory has been exposed like this.”
“You mean with pictures of her naked, astride you? With you fucking her?”
Luca sighed. “We had no idea we were being watched.”
“And I had no idea you were fucking the woman who saved our child’s life. Were you screwing her before the shooting, too? Or have you really moved on so quickly?” Clem’s voice had risen progressively during her rant until finally, the phone went dead.
Luca dropped his phone and his head into his hands. Emory kept her arms around him, having obviously heard everything. “I’m so sorry, Luca,” she whispered, and he could see the tears dripping down her face.
“You don’t apologize for anything, baby.” His jaw set in anger. “I’m going to find out who’s behind this, and I’m going to tear them apart.”
By the end of the week, Zea was exhausted. Now she had the weekend free, and she was planning on doing some chores and then relaxing. Huh, relaxing, she thought, that’s a good one. She’d been on edge ever since the photos of Luca Saffran and Emory Grace had appeared in the papers. What if someone was trying to seek her out, too? What if someone had gotten some shots of her and Flynt Newlan that night?
You’re being paranoid. But now when she went out, she was extra-vigilant, checking all around her to see if anyone was watching. She didn’t care if she looked like a lunatic. She was filling her car at the gas station and, having checked around her beforehand, she jumped sky-high when an insolent drawl came from behind me.
“Your ass looks good in those jeans.”
She turned slowly to see Flynt Newlan leaning on his car, grinning at her. She scowled at him. “Haven’t you heard? It’s the twenty-first century. You can’t say stuff like that to women. You might get your own ass handed to you.”
He laughed, a deep, throaty, sexy sound that made her sex quiver and her stomach flip. “If it’s you doing the ass-handling, sweetheart, I could take it.”
He came up behind her and took the gas pump handle from her. Zea felt breathless as she leaned back into his hard chest. She could feel his erection hard against her butt. His lips were at her ear.
“See, I just want to bend you over the hood of this car, right now, beautiful.” He ran the tip of his tongue around her earlobe, and she shivered with desire, his free hand stroking her stomach.
Gathering herself, she turned in his arms. “I don’t do relationships,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady in the face of his outrageous beauty. “I don’t do commitment, or feelings, or any shit like that. I have far too much going on in my life to get involved with someone like you, Flynt Newlan.”
He grinned. “But you cared enough to find out my name, sweet cheeks.” He leaned and whispered in her ear. “You really think you get to set the terms, huh?”
She shivered, desire racing through her body, and Flynt laughed softly and nodded to his car, a sweet Mustang. Muscle car. Of course. “You really do fit every stereotype, don’t you?” She grinned suddenly, and he laughed and shrugged.
“I do me. It works. Now, your gas tank is full. Why don’t you shift that sweet ass and follow me somewhere more private?”
I shouldn’t be doing this, Zea thought, I should just turn the car around, go home, and forget about this man. Her mind was made up; sadly, her body won the argument. She followed him out to the forest. When she got out of the car, he was waiting for her. He was smiling, but she was relieved to see it wasn’t a smile of victory, more of pleasure.
He slid a hand around her waist and tugged her to him. She studied his intense blue eyes, his stubble, his swarthy skin. “Who are you?” Her voice was a whisper.
“For the next hour or so, beautiful, I’m the man who’s going to be inside you, fucking you, tasting you, making you come, making you scream my name.”
His fingers were already under her T-shirt, and he pulled it over her head in one swift motion. One by one, he pulled the lacy cups of her bra down and took her nipples into his mouth, teasing them until they were so sensitive, Zea thought she might scream.
He stripped her slowly, then sat her on the hood of his car, pushing her back so she was lying beneath his still fully-clothed body. He kissed her lips, then moved down her body, his tongue tracing a path down her belly, his hands pushing her legs apart until his mouth found her sex and lashed around her clit until she was moaning and writhing. He made her come once, then, as she caught her breath, he moved up her body.
“You want my cock now, beauty?”
Zea, almost delirious, nodded, and Flynt grinned as he unzipped his jeans. He hooked her knees over his shoulders and slammed the entire length of his huge cock into her. Zea screamed as he thrust himself hard into her again and again, balls deep, until she was begging him never to stop.
Afterward, he flipped her onto her stomach and fucked her perfect ass, Zea utterly at his mercy. She was struggling for breath, later, as he pulled out of her. He kissed her thoroughly and then grinned, zipping his still-hard cock back into his jeans. He helped her dress, seeing she was shaking all over.
“See you soon, gorgeous,” he said and swaggered back to his car.
Zea watched him drive off, a whirlwind of emotions inside her. Man, that guy could fuck, and the easy way he drifted in and out of her life after causing so much turmoil … she laughed to herself. Maybe Flynt was just what she needed after all. She drove back home and spent the rest of the day, reveling in the afterglow of Flynt Newlan.
Heroine or Whore? Did the Auburn Savoir Take Advantage of Her Newfound Fame?
The Billionaire and the Beauty—looks like a love match for Luca Saffran and the girl who saved his daughter …
Was Emory Grace in cahoots with the Auburn Killer so she could ‘save’ the Billionaire’s daughter and reel him in?
The first headlines had shocked her, but the last one … Emory burst into tears. Luca ran out of cuss words and had to make up a few new ones. His lawyer, Peter, watched as Luca comforted Emory.
“We’ll hit them with everything we’ve got for that one,” Peter said eventually, “don’t worry about that. Besides, look at the rag it’s in—they’ve had Elvis alive and Cher dying for the last twenty years. No one believes that shit.” Peter was, if nothing else, a bulldog when it came to protecting his client. He was plainspoken and forthright, but he looked kindly at Emory now. “The police have our backs, Emory, so please, ride out this storm.”
“Ray did this,” she said, wiping her face on the back of her hand. “He’s trying to destroy me. He knows he won’t get near enough to hurt me physically, so this is what he does.”
“Then we’ll play him at his own game,” said Luca with a voice of ice. “Raymond Grace won’t know what’s hit him.”
Sunday evening, Zea had fallen asleep on her couch, so when someone knocked at her apartment door, she woke with a start and fell off the couch. Landing awkwardly, she scrambled up, cursing to herself. She opened the door to see Jared laughing softly. “That’s quite a lexicon you have there.”
Zea grinned, flushing red. “
I tripped. Hello, Jared, good to see you. Come in.”
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
She was confused.
“Like what?”
He nodded to the floor. “Your floor routine for the Olympics. I assume that’s what the noise was.” He grinned and looked so much like David for a second; it took Zea’s breath away.
“You caught me. Is that for me?”
Jared was holding a bottle of red wine, and he handed it over. “I should have called first, but then I realized I haven’t got your number.”
“Well, that’ll do it. Please, won’t you have a glass with me?”
“Love too.”
Two hours later, and Zea and Jared were definitely on the wrong side of drunk. Zea discovered he was a great drinking buddy: funny, erudite, gently teasing her. God, she was reminded of David, except … it was as if Jared was David turned up to eleven. Funnier, smarter, more sophisticated. And enigmatic—although he’d told her everything about his past, his adoption, his and David’s origins, he told her very little about his present.
She opened another bottle of wine. “So, Jared, tell me, do you have a family?”
He hesitated. “I did. My wife died a few years ago, cancer.”
“I’m sorry. Did you have any kids?”
“A daughter. She passed recently.”
Zea was appalled. “God, Jared, that’s awful, I can’t imagine.”
There was something in his eyes she couldn’t read, but he looked away, nodding. “It was an … accident. One minute she was there and the next…” His voice broke.
Zea felt the tears come and, drunkenly, she got up and put her arms around him, hugging him awkwardly. “Jared, I’m so sorry.”
She stood there for a long moment, hugging the seated man, then let him go, tottering backward a little. “I am really very drunk.”
Zea hiccupped and swayed, banging into a table. Jared steadied her.
“Me, too.”
She squinted at him. “Really? You don’t seem it.”
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